The rain-soaked undergrowth, breast-high, in its full summer luxuriance, presented a tangle difficult to push through; willows and elders wept as I brushed against them; moisture gathering on the upper leaves of chestnut, oak, and sycamore pattered on the lower leaves, and fell in steady showers upon the sodden turf below. Trickles down branches and trunks joined and formed rivulets on the lichen-greened bales, swamping the yellow frog-hoppers sheltering from the rain. It was wetter in the wood than on the mere, where the still water was barely stirred by the soft but persistent downpour. A long-winged tern flew deliberately up and down, checking occasionally to sweep round and drop headlong into the water; then the young black-headed gulls, jealous of its skill and success, followed it screaming, but without quickening its pace it dodged them easily, and continued its piscatorial hunt. Swallows and martins in hundreds, with a few belated swifts, skimmed low above the reed-bed, where delicate gnats danced regardless of rain. A few grebes still carried downy infants on their backs, cradled between their uplifted wings, but most of the young are now well grown and able to fish for themselves; the parents of these bigger striped-necked youngsters, though keeping a watchful eye upon them, dived repeatedly to escape their persistent demands for food. Rising from a dive, they floated idly, preening their satin breasts, until the young birds, paddling swiftly, reached them; then down they went again, reappearing many yards away.
.png?w=600)
